It is not (historically at least) about Bright Young Things, Home Owners, Eurotrash or Trust Fund Kids.

As with so many things, the meaning has been co-opted by the BYTs.

As with so many things, the meaning has been co-opted by the BYTs.

Much like Williamsburg its self.

I'm going to conclude that hipsters are a largely mythical being existing only to be the subject of other people's ire.

I'd invite you to come with me to Wicker Park and see them in their natural habitat, but I haven't been over there in a while and they may have moved on to other Pabst Blue Ribbon watering holes.

"Hip" to me has a positive connotation, while "hipster" does not.

Wikipedia has two Hipster pages. One is "1940s Subculture" one is "Contemporary Subculture".

one is "Contemporary Subculture".

How is the contemporary version differentiated from sheer dickishness?

It's a special kind of dickishness.

I'm going to conclude that hipsters are a largely mythical being existing only to be the subject of other people's ire.

I'd invite you to come with me to Wicker Park and see them in their natural habitat, but I haven't been over there in a while and they may have moved on to other Pabst Blue Ribbon watering holes.

He doesn't need to go that far - we've got 'em all over this city. Valencia is a hotbed, in particular.

Heh. This is pretty cute:

In a Huffington Post article entitled "Who's a Hipster?", Julia Plevin argues that the "definition of 'hipster' remains opaque to anyone outside this self-proclaiming, highly-selective circle". She claims that the "whole point of hipsters is that they avoid labels and being labeled. However, they all dress the same and act the same and conform in their non-conformity" to an "iconic carefully created sloppy vintage look".

Elise Thompson, an editor for the LA blog LAist argues that "people who came of age in the 70s and 80s punk rock movement seem to universally hate 'hipsters'", which she defines as people wearing "expensive 'alternative' fashion[s]", going to the "latest, coolest, hippest bar...[and] listen[ing] to the latest, coolest, hippest band." Thompson argues that hipsters "...don’t seem to subscribe to any particular philosophy... [or] ...particular genre of music." Instead, she argues that they are "soldiers of fortune of style" who take up whatever is popular and in style, "appropriat[ing] the style[s]" of past countercultural movements such as punk, while "discard[ing] everything that the style stood for."[16]

I don't know. The co-option of cool as a marketable commodity is a pretty old gripe. Not that I don't think it happens, as obviously it does. It might be that it's reached a sort of peak of Uncooling All The Previous Cool things by marketing and clueless adoption.

Then again, every cohort that turns thirty and settles into their career/life/family declares that irony is dead when they really just mean they need to wear sensible shoes or their backs hurt.